Torrential rains have caused a dam to collapse, flooding vast areas of northeast Nigeria and displacing hundreds of thousands of people, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced.
Alau Dam, located just over 10 miles south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, collapsed on Tuesday night, inundating homes and infrastructure. The dam failure forced authorities to issue evacuation orders, as river water overwhelmed more than half of the city.
“What I have seen is really heartbreaking,” said Emmanuel Bigenimana, head of WFP’s office in Maiduguri, who conducted an aerial assessment. “Homes, infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals – they are all submerged by water.”
The displacement has created a humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people seeking refuge in overcrowded IDP camps and on the streets.
“Many, many people are overcrowded in several IDP camps and also on the streets,” Bigenimana said.
WFP has opened soup kitchens in three camps – Teachers’ Village, Asheikh, and Yerwa – to provide hot meals to 50,000 of the most vulnerable people, including children, women, and men who have lost their homes.
“This is really an additional burden to already existing crises,” said Bigenimana. “This region has been facing conflict for a decade.”
Borno State was one of the areas most affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, which the UN said earlier this year has been controlled to some extent.
“More recently, we have seen food inflation, food prices have been skyrocketing, really affecting millions of people who are facing food insecurity,” said Bigenimana.
The flooding adds to the existing humanitarian challenges in Nigeria, which is already grappling with extreme weather events. As of September, floods have affected over 800,000 people in 29 states, and more than 550,000 hectares of cropland have been inundated.
The UN estimates that 32 million people in Nigeria were already facing acute hunger as of March this year.
WFP is requesting $147.9m to provide food assistance to people in northeast Nigeria over the next six months.
“For the flood-affected populations in Maiduguri, recovery will take long,” said Bigenimana. “We need more resources to save lives and to put together efforts to respond to the crises – and also think of longer-term recovery and solutions.”
